Do Not Pass Go
by guardianofscrewingup
Summary: Mabel and Dipper's joy over returning to Gravity Falls for their second summer is quickly cut short due to the discovery of a strange artifact that makes games become real. After it accidentally comes into contact with one of Soos' video games, the twins find themselves in Mortiferous Image III, a twisted horror game full of ghosts that can only be fended off by mystical cameras.


**Summary:** It's Mabel and Dipper's second summer in Gravity Falls and their joy over returning is quickly cut short due to the discovery of a strange artifact that makes games become real. After it accidentally comes into contact with one of Soos' video games, the twins find themselves in Mortiferous Image III: The Killening, a twisted horror game full of ghosts that can only be fended off by supernaturally souped-up cameras. With the clock ticking down, the twins must escape the game before they're forced into in the horrific actions of the game's inescapable Bad Ending: the sacrifice of one twin by the other!

 **A/N:** This story is obviously inspired by the video game Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, but I decided to give it a slight twist by creating a similar video game that exists in-universe for the purposes of the story, rather than treating it as a true crossover. That means not everything will be identical to the real game.

* * *

 **Do Not Pass Go**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

The hardest part about returning to Gravity Falls was the fact that Dipper and Mabel lacked the capacity to _teleport_ there. That meant from the moment they got back from their normal vacation with their parents they had to actually _wait_ to get there.

And it was _agony_.

Most of that waiting was just them waiting for their parents to buy the stupid bus tickets. After all, they had their bags already packed and ready for them. Upon their return from Vacation 1 with their parents (to Arizona; they saw the Grand Canyon, majestic natural wonder, blah blah blah), all they had to do was jam a few things that had to be switched over from one set of luggage into the other and they were ready to go on Vacation 2.

Finally, after a few days of waiting, one phone call to Soos, one phone call from Grunkle Stan saying he and Great Uncle Ford would be able to meet them in Gravity Falls, and one quick foray by their parents to the bus line's website, they finally got their tickets, said their goodbyes, begged the bus driver to let Waddles on board long enough (and annoyingly enough) that he'd given in, and then they were on their way to Gravity Falls.

Which meant waiting even more because they had to wait to _get_ there. It was a pretty long trip.

Mabel was practically vibrating out of her seat the entire time, like a rocket threatening to break apart and explode on the launch pad.

"How long? How much longer?" she asked for about the millionth time.

"Mabel, I'm not going to keep checking like this! You keep asking every ten minutes!"

"How much longer, Dipper?"

Dipper rolled his eyes. "Ten minutes less than it was ten minutes ago."

" _How much longer?!_ " said Mabel, shaking Dipper by the shoulders, her eyes wide, wild, and slightly terrifying.

Dipper relented and checked his watch. "Probably another four and a half hours."

"Aaaagh," Mabel said, stuffing the neck of her purple sweater into her mouth. "Mmmphle mmmrph mmpph."

"Mabel, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't speak Sweatermouthlish."

She spat it out. "First of all, who's fault is that when I made you a study guide? Secondly, I said I don't know how much more of this I can take!"

"...Probably another four and a half hours," Dipper suggested dryly.

Probably. Unless she spontaneously combusted. It looked like she almost might.

"I'm going to die!" she said dramatically. "If I have to wait any longer I'm going to explode! And die!"

She flopped against him, "When I do, I demand that you use what's left of me for creative and somewhat tasteful finger-painted memorial art."

"If you do explode, can you try to do it _sooner_ rather than later, so I don't have to listen to this for another _four and a half hours_?"

Dipper wasn't sure why he was managing to stay so calm about waiting himself. He was practically burning up with anticipation, too. And, if he was honest with himself, with a little anxiousness.

Last summer had been the biggest, most amazing adventure of their lives! But now that all that was over, the universe presented two possibilities, each as horrifying as the other:

1) That they might go back to Gravity Falls and have to face something as terrifying as the end of the world again.

Or:

2) That now that all the weirdness of the portal was gone, Gravity Falls held no more adventures for them _at all_.

Dipper didn't want either. Dipper wanted fun and his friends, he wanted his grunkles, and he wanted to spend time having fun with his sister.

But he also wanted weirdness. He'd spent one long, boring, painfully normal year back home in Piedmont and the most exciting thing that'd happened was that he and Mabel got to be the two kids in the neighborhood that had a pet pig. (Something that Grunkle Stan'd had to talk their parents into. He didn't know exactly what was said on that phone call, but he wasn't surprised it was Grunkle Stan of all people that'd somehow conned his parents into accepting Waddles).

That was the most exciting thing that'd happened to them all year.

Well, other than the time they got lost in the woods overnight chasing down a local urban legend they'd heard about. (It turned out to be bogus). Or the time they got busted in school for scamming other kids out of their lunch money with three card monte. (Mabel had been the dealer and Dipper had been the shill, of course). Or the time Mabel decked out another kid that was bullying him with one punch. (And then, in a feat of Grunkle-Stan-esque con-man skill, talked her way out of expulsion _and_ detention). Or the time Dipper flipped out and tackled a man on the Santa Cruz boardwalk because he was dressed in a nacho chip mascot costume. (That one had been hard to explain to their parents.)

...Okay, other than those things, at least, nothing else exciting had happened the entire year. And most of that had happened back in the early fall and winter anyway.

Dipper wanted excitement again.

Just...not _too much_ excitement. Not as much as last time. Moderate levels of excitement.

"How much longer is it now?" Mabel asked, clinging to Waddles and rocking slightly in place.

"Way too long. Way, _way_ too long."

* * *

Excitement turned out to be only four hours away rather than four and a half, because the bus made better time than Dipper had calculated (partly because Mabel had taken to annoying the driver and that made him put on even more speed so he could be rid of the twins sooner).

When they got into town, the sight that greeted them wasn't what they expected.

Waiting for them at the bus stop was a great big crowd of-

"Nobody? Are you sure nobody's there?" Dipper asked Mabel as she squished her face against the window as they got closer.

"Nobody! The bus stop's empty! Do you think maybe they're not there just because we're early?"

"Maybe," Dipper said doubtfully, but as the bus stopped and they unloaded with their luggage and Waddles in tow, he grew even more doubtful.

"Probably not," he relented.

Everything seemed...empty. Too empty. As the bus left, a forlorn breeze came along and whistled through the trees, making the bus stop seem even more empty. It felt cooler than usual, enough that Dipper was glad for the blue hoodie he'd pulled on.

"Something bad must have happened. There's no way _nobody_ would be here! I mean, Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford might've gotten held up on their way to port, but Wendy and Soos, or Candy and Grenda would've shown up at least, right?"

"Right," agreed Mabel. "I mean, look at the two of us! We're the town heroes! And pretty much irresistibly adorable!"

" _Exactly_ ," agreed Dipper. "Clearly, this means there's a _mystery_ afoot!"

"Why do you keep trying to work the word 'afoot' into things all the time? It's like athing with you now."

"Because things are afoot! They're-they're running around with metaphorical feet!" He paused, then admitted, "I don't know, it's just what they say in the Sibling Brothers books! I like how it sounds. It's...old-timey. Okay?"

She rolled her eyes semi-affectionately. "Dork."

"Weirdo," he shot back, also sort-of affectionately.

Then they both grinned at each other with smiles full of mischief and daring. They hadn't grinned this particular set of grins at each other in a good long while.

"Mystery Twins?" he offered, holding out his hand for a fist bump.

"Mystery Twins!" she exclaimed, fistbumping him back, and then she shrieked in the direction of the town at the top of her lungs, "HERE THAT, GRAVITY FALLS WEIRDNESS! WE'RE BACK! AND WE'RE GOING TO CHEW YOU UP AND SPIT YOU OUT! PTEW!"

"Less screaming, maybe?" Dipper suggested, holding his hands over his ears and wincing. "Less screaming at the potential horribleness that may have disappeared all our friends, so it doesn't know we're coming?"

"Whoops. Yeeeeah, maybe stealth is a good idea. Ha haaa."

With that, the two of them rolled their luggage down the long road towards the Mystery Shack. They didn't see a single person on the way, which was uncanny. Even though the Shack was one of the more remote locations near town, there were usually always a few people coming and going at this time of day. Grunkle Stan always said the late afternoon was primetime for bamboozling chumps. That was usually when people were trying to find somewhere out of the heat to wile away a lazy summer afternoon.

"Definitely something weird going on," said Dipper.

When they got to the shack, they saw that no one seemed to be inside the main part of the shop - and no one was out front either. Just-

"Gompers!" Mabel ran over and threw her arms around the goat's neck. "We missed you, buddy! Did you miss us, too?"

Gompers chewed on Mabel's hair in reply.

"Good ol' Gompers!"

"Okay, let's leave our luggage here," said Dipper. "Ready to get your sneak on?"

"Lemme warm up my sneaking feet! It's been a while!" Mabel briefly danced in place. "There we go! All warmed up and ready to tread where few dare to tread!"

They left their luggage on the front lawn and carefully crept through the front door of the Mystery Shack, with Waddles at their heels. It was completely empty inside.

"This is so weird. Where's Soos? And Wendy and Melody?" said Dipper. "Something's wrong."

"It's a good thing I brought my -" Mabel pulled out her grappling hook and was about to scream 'Grappling hook!' but Dipper clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Okay, you got the sneaking feet working-how about warming up your sneaking mouth, too?"

Mabel nodded and when Dipper removed his hand, she hissed quietly, "Grappling hooook."

This was about as quiet as she was going to get while revved up like this so Dipper just rolled his eyes and reached for one of the mini baseball bats, emblazoned with the Mystery Shack logo and the catchphrase: 'You can hit people you don't like with this!'

That was definitely one of the leftover souvenirs that Grunkle Stan had designed.

He adjusted his hat so that it was on straight, out of habit. It was a pretty floppy hat compared to the cap he'd exchanged last summer with Wendy. It needed that sometimes.

"Okay, let's move," he said and the two of them worked their way through the house.

"Nothing in the living room," he said, as he peeked in.

"No one's in the kitchen, either," said Mabel.

"Maybe someone's in the back? After that, we should check upstairs, the attic, and then down in Great Uncle Ford's bunker."

As they approached the back door - the one that led to the massive area where Grunkle stan used to sometimes throw parties - they heard a strange hushing inside, like someone was shushing someone else to keep them quiet.

"I think something's waiting to ambush us!" whispered Dipper. "There are too many windows, so I don't think we can sneak in through the back without being spotted."

"Let's go in guns blazing!" Mabel whispered back.

"That's not as effective when you don't have actual guns!"

"If something is waiting for us - if it took Soos and Wendy and Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford and everyone - we have to fight back!" Mabel insisted. "We don't know what's happening to them right now! We don't have time to be careful!"

"Okay, okay! Guns blazing it is. Ready? On three, we run in screaming like maniacs!" Dipper hissed.

"Like totally crazy people!" Mabel hissed back, delighted at the prospect.

"One. Two. Three!" Dipper kicked open the door.

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGH!" Mabel screamed, running in and brandishing her grappling hook.

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGH!" Dipper screamed, running in and brandishing his mini bat.

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGH!" screamed basically the entire town.

The two of them stopped screaming and looked around the room in confusion. There were people. Lots of people. And banners. And streamers. And a disco ball.

"Wait, what -?"

"How come -?"

"Geez, kids, what's with the screaming?" said Grunkle Stan, standing in front of the crowd. He was still wearing his woolen hat like he wore in all his pictures of him on the boat. "You kinda ruined the part where we all jump out and scream at _you_! I like that part."

Behind Grunkle Stan stood Great Uncle Ford and Soos and Wendy and Melody and Candy and Grenda and Pacifica - and basically everybody! Most of the town had crammed into the back of the Shack.

"What's going on?" said Dipper, bewildered. "Why is everyone -?"

Mabel figured it out much faster, cutting him off with a scream of, "Surprise party! EEEEEE!"

She ran and jumped at Grunkle Stan, who pulled her into a tight embrace.

"It's good to see you too, pumpkin!"

"We missed you so much, Grunkle Stan! We got all the presents that you mailed us! I really liked that shrunken monkey paw you conned off that merchant sailor!"

"But -" Dipper stuttered, before it finally registered. "Oh. Oh, it's a party."

"Don't worry, Dipper! There's no threat here!" said Great Uncle Ford, picking up a little better on Dipper's obvious worry about the potential danger. "Not that it's bad to have the instinct to be vigilant!"

"It's just a 'Welcome back to Gravity Falls' party, dum dums!" said Wendy.

"We missed you little dudes!" said Soos.

"We got half the town crammed in here!" said Grunkle Stan, letting go of Mabel as she threw herself at Candy and Grenda. "Soos even let them in for free!"

He twirled a finger next to his heads and mouthed 'crazy.'

"Candy! Grenda! I missed you so much!" Mabel cried out, throwing herself at her two best friends.

"But we video chatted with you online last week!" Grenda pointed out as Mabel tackled them.

"That was _forever_ ago! And now you're here! And I'm here! And I can squish my face against your faces instead of against the computer camera!" she said, doing just that.

"We have wanted to have your face squishes all year!" Candy exclaimed delightedly as Mabel squished on them. "Squish squish!"

Now that his heart wasn't racing with fear, Dipper's heart started racing with excitement. They were back! They were back and everyone was so glad to see them that they'd hidden in the Shack for a surprise party! The whole reason no one had been waiting for them had been to draw them into the surprise!

"Grunkle Stan!" Dipper called out, dropping the bat and throwing himself at Grunkle Stan. Great Uncle Ford was close enough for him to grab, too, so he pulled them both into a hug. "Great Uncle Ford! It's so good to see you again!"

"I missed you rotten little monsters!" said Grunkle Stan fondly, hugging Dipper just as tightly as he'd hugged Mabel. Great Uncle Ford hugged him, too, patting him on the shoulder even after he pulled away. Their hugs felt warm and wonderful - and strong. It felt like they'd both put on some muscle - no surprise when they were probably doing a lot of lifting and pulling on sails in their boat.

Their faces were both ruddy from the sun and salt and wind and they both had a bit more vitality to them - something surprising when they'd both already been fairly spry.

"You wouldn't believe the things we've seen up in the Arctic, Dipper! I can't wait to share my findings with you!" said Ford enthusiasticly.

The two of them seemed much...happier. Much more at ease with each other. He and Mabel had gotten the odd phone call from foreign phone numbers, and chatted online with them sometimes when they were in port, but they hadn't talked as often as they would've liked - especially since neither of them were the best as getting modern technology to work well. Grunkle Stan could barely use a computer to save his life and Great Uncle Ford was a genius with all the strange homebrew technology of his and Fiddleford's invention, but he had a slightly steeper learning curve when it came to newer computers and programs.

Most of their communication had been one way, with the two of them sending letters and post cards.

It was good to see that during all the time they _hadn't_ seen that they'd managed to bond again.

"Hey, hambone! How's it hanging?" said Soos, horning in for his own hug and then Wendy came piling in after.

"Geez, Dipper, growth spurt much?" said Wendy.

"I know! I grew, like, four whole inches!" he said excitedly. "Mabel's taller than me now, though. I can't catch up."

She'd started shooting up first, finally pushing noticeably ahead of him in height. It was the first time they were visibly different heights.

"Alpha twiiin!" Mabel cried out in response to that, laughing delightedly. She dove into the hug mass with Soos and Wendy. "Soos, Wendy, aaaah! Let me rub my face on you, too!"

"Get in aaall the facerubbing you want, Mabel," Wendy said good-naturedly. "You've got a year's worth of backlog to work through."

After properly hugging Mabel and Dipper, Soos adjusted his fez, and then turned to all the people there.

"Now that the guests of honor are here, it's time to party down!" he declared. "Or up! Or possibly even in multiple directions!"

With that, Melody started laying down some sick beats at her DJ stand, and everyone started to party.

Mabel squealed. "Is there karoake? There's karoake! It's time for the return of Love Patrol Alpha!"

* * *

The twins spent most of the night partying but when they weren't dancing or singing stupid karaoke songs with Grunkle Stan and their friends, they were talking to everyone they'd missed, asking what everyone had been up to. There were a surprising number of people to catch up with - surprising in that they'd even become people that Dipper and Mabel cared about.

Like they wanted to find out what Pacific had been up to. And even _Gideon_. Apparently, he'd been pretty well-behaved when they'd been gone, successfully trying out that "normal teenager" thing. He was even wearing clothes that were less weird and more like what normal teenagers wore. He didn't give Mabel any creepy looks even once during the party.

It was only when things quieted down that they got to finally sit and talk with their grunkles and Soos and Wendy.

"You should'a seen it!" said Grunkle Stan. "Fifty feet tall -"

"Closer to forty-two," Ford corrected reflexively.

"Sixty feet tall, looming up out of the water! Staring at us with its one beady eye! Then it leaned in to grab us with its tentacles and I'm swinging - giving it a right and a left with my brass knuckles and it's doing nothing! So it grabs me and it's holding me upside down and bam! Sixer here gets it right in the eye with the harpoon gun," said Grunkle Stan, throwing his arm around his brother's shoulders. "Kept me from being that thing's snack!"

"Woooow!" said Dipper and Mabel in hushed voices.

"Well, if you think that's impressive, you should've seen Stanley here when we were caught by those pirates off the coast of Singapore. Somehow he got them convinced that we were Belgian royalty so that they were willing to keep us alive for a ransom, and - well, you know, I think we've gone on about our adventures enough, actually," said Ford, noticing the time. It was getting late now after all their reminiscing and catching up, and so far the twins had barely talked about themselves. "Honestly, we haven't asked enough about you! What have you both been up to this last year? Stanley and I were only able to talk to you a few times over the computer and the phone."

"Yeah, I'm sure you kids have gotten into tons of trouble!" said Stan.

Mabel and Dipper both looked at each other and shrugged.

"Not really? I mean we told you about how we got busted for three card monte," said Dipper.

"And about us getting lost overnight when we were chasing down that urban legend thingy Dipper found."

"And about how Mabel decked out Dinglederfer."

"With my fist of fury!" Mabel said, holding up a fist.

"And that's...kind of it. It's been that and school and hanging out with our Piedmont friends just...doing boring stuff," said Dipper. Mabel gave them another hapless shrug and Dipper readjusted his hat nervously. "It's kiiind of not as exciting back home as it is for you guys.".

"Hey, it's not exactly like things have been a wild party without you guys here," said Wendy. "Since last year, everything's kind of quieted down."

That was not really what Dipper wanted to hear.

"And all that action is overrated anyway," said Grunkle Stan, waving a hand. "Sixer and I want to get back out there again eventually but we could use a break. And the best way to spend it is just doing normal boring summer junk with you kids!"

"Fortunately, there's enough room for all you dudes here at the Shack!" said Soos. "We're going to have another great summer. Except this time maybe the apocalypse won't happen!"

"Here's to another great summer with Dipper and Mabel!" said Wendy, holding up her can of Pitt cola. "Minus the end of the world this time!"

"To another great summer with our favorite little dudes!" said Soos, holding up his own can.

"To my two favorite pains in the behind in the world!" said Stan.

"Here here!" said Ford and they all clinked their cans together.

Dipper couldn't help but smile as he clinked his own can against theirs. So maybe things had quieted down a bit in Gravity Falls after they'd left, and maybe that meant the summer wouldn't be filled with as many wild adventures, but it still was great to be around all their friends and family from Gravity Falls again.

And it'd be great to spend some time with his sister.

Not that he hadn't spent time with her in the last year but in the last year she'd shown even more of a pronounced interest in -

"Oh my gosh, who is that handsome gentleman?" Mabel suddenly squealed to Grenda, pointing to a blonde boy talking to some other kids on the dance floor.

"Oh, that's Derek! He moved to Gravity Falls six months ago! He has fancy hair!"

Boys. She paid even more attention to boys.

"If he moved here six months ago he doesn't know I'm a giant hero and about how adorable I am, whaaaat? Maybe I should get him caught up in sort-of current events!" Mabel said, hopping off the couch to go over and say hi.

Candy and Grenda trailed behind her to be proper wingladies.

Dipper rolled his eyes as he watched them go. Stan and Ford broke off in conversation with Soos about possible summer plans and Wendy scooched to sit closer to where he sat on the arm of the couch.

"So what's the deal?"

"What? What deal?"

"Between you and Mabel."

"There's no deal. We're good. We're fine."

Wendy just raised an eyebrow at him and Dipper threw his head back in consternation. He _still_ couldn't ever get anything past her.

"It's nothing!" he insisted. He finally relented, "It's not like we're fighting or anything. It's just lately...I don't know. It's not like we've been drifting apart or something but sometimes it feels like we're on entirely different wavelengths."

"How come?"

"Different interests? But even more than before."

"That's all?"

"No no no no, you don't understand," said Dipper, gesturing with both hands. "When I say we have different interests I mean Mabel's gone absolutely, stark ravingly, insanely boy-crazy. Worse than she ever was."

"There is no way she could be worse than last year."

"Worse!" Dipper insisted. "This was the first year we moved to separate bedrooms because I kept walking in on her practicing kissing with her pillow. Urgh. Just look at her over there! Losing it over Generic Derek."

Wendy laughed.

"All she talks about is boys! Boys boys boys and boy band this and boy magazine that! And fashion fashion fashion. She still makes scrap books and macaroni pictures of her feelings but everything she puts in them? Boys! And clothes!" Dipper leaned in close, like he was sharing a secret, and said in a hushed voice, "And now she even wears _tinted lip balm_ to school! Mom and dad don't know. She puts it on every day on the bus!"

That made Wendy clasp a hand over her mouth and gasp facetiously, "Scandal!"

"...Annnd you're making fun of me."

"Listen, it's totally normal at her age. When I was her age, even I was like that for a little while."

"Seriously? _You_?"

"Yep. Boy band posters on my walls and everything."

"Wow."

"I know, right? It only lasted for like a year. And then I burned them. All the boy-crazy hormones dialed down a bit and the sweaty, awkward hormones kicked in full blast and I kind of went back to almost being a normal human being again."

"I just don't know how to relate. I mean, I'm still - okay, I'm _more_ \- interested in girls but -" He blushed slightly, avoiding Wendy's eyes, but that was the only awkwardness that remained of having had a crush on her. He shrugged. "Sometimes it feels like she's talking in another language, you know? I just wish she wasn't so monofocused on these few narrow interests I can't really get involved in."

"And what interests of yours have you been digging into lately?" Wendy asked.

"Well. I have been kind of interested in biology lately so I've been learning a lot about fungi and -"

That made Wendy just laugh abruptly. In his face.

He reflected on that a moment. "To be fair, I can see why she maybe hasn't taken an interest in some of _my_ interests, but -"

"Listen, Dipper, there are going to be some growing pains. I know you're used to being close to each other - like way closer than siblings that aren't twins. You guys are close in ways I probably can't even understand since I'm not a twin. But just because you both figured out a bunch of stuff last summer doesn't mean everything's going to stay all static, you know? You both are going to change and then you'll adjust to both of you changing."

"How do you know we'll adjust? What if we just start drifting apart?"

"Okay, one, there's _no way_ you'll just drift apart after everything you've been through together. I mean, that was literally the end of the world. And two, adjusting is just a normal growing up thing. If you asked me last year if I liked high school I would've said I hated it. But this year I joined the lacrosse team? And I was _crushing it_ as a center. We totally won finals and everything."

"Wendy, that's awesome!" Dipper said warmly.

"Turns out swinging an ax around was good practice for swinging around a lacrosse stick. It's not something I'd have even thought of to do last year, because sports are lame, but I tried something new and adjusted. And it made high school - something that sucked - suck less. You and Mabel will figure things out and adjust, too."

Dipper looked out on the dance floor where Mabel was giving it her all while flirting with a very overwhelmed and bewildered-looking Derek.

"It's just...not easy." He chuckled softly and shook his head, looking at the floor. "The funny thing was last year _I_ was the one that wanted to grow up too fast. Now it's like we've both done a total 180 over the last year. She wants to grow up, like, _right away_ , and more and more I miss… I miss how things were last summer. Here in Gravity Falls. The further away from that summer we get, the more I want to go back. Even with all the horrible, terrifying stuff that happened."

He looked back up at his sister.

"But we can't go back. That summer's gone. And all I can think about is how hard it's going to be when it's more than us moving away from that summer and it's...us moving away from each other. Like...we're going to grow up and she's going to get like a _real_ boyfriend at some point and I'm just -"

"Going to be her bro," said Wendy, draping her arm around Dipper's shoulders. " _For the rest of her life_. Look, she's always going to need you. And you're always going to need her. And she's always going to _want_ you as part of her life. Like I said, you just need to figure out this next step and how you're going to grow up together. That's what growing up is all about."

That gave Dipper a lot to think about, and it was pretty good advice. He turned to smile at her.

"Has anyone told you how awesome you are?"

"Eeeeh, not lately. I could stand to hear it more." She smiled back at him and ruffled his hat, twisting it so it was uneven on his head.

"By the way," he said, pointing to the hat, "did you...did you want this back?"

"Naaaah. You can hold onto it. It's warm and it's looking like this summer's going to be cool for more reasons than just the fact you guys came back. Besides, this looks good on me." She tapped the pine tree hat on her head and she jumped up from the couch. "Anyway, I have to head out. I'm spending a bunch of the week with you guys but tomorrow me and the team are taking an end-of-the-year celebratory day trip out to steal Pendlebrook High's mascot. They have a pet pig named Pendleton and we're going to hide it at my friend Becky's house and send ransom notes and everything."

"Well, you enjoy your larceny then."

"Like always!"

Dipper watched her leave and couldn't stop himself from smiling. The shriveled remains of his old crush even peeked its head out and he had to mentally yell at it to simmer down and shut up.

"How is it she gets even cooler every year?" he said quietly to himself. Then he shook his head and looked back at Mabel, who'd seemingly charmed Derek into dancing with her.

He hoped Wendy was right.

Because they couldn't go back to last summer. They could only move forward. Hopefully, if that meant letting go of what they'd had as siblings in the past, it also meant creating something new.

He just wished the way to do it was clearer. As they grew up more and more, they needed to keep redefining their relationship, but he didn't know how to do that. And he wondered why he was the only one worrying about it.

Was this how Mabel had felt last year? As she watched him slip away more and more to wanting to act like an adult? Maybe this was what he deserved for not taking the time to understand why it made her so worried she'd be left behind. All he knew for sure was that they'd been right to see growing up as the next big - and completely uncertain - adventure. He just hoped it was one that would have just as good an ending as the last one.

* * *

Before long, stories had been told, catching up had happened, the party eventually wound down, and everyone went home. After cleaning up after the party, everyone settled in for their first night back in Gravity Falls.

"So, basically, however you dudes want to split everything up is cool," said Soos. "My room is the one that used to have that super weird magic carpet in it - mostly because Stan's was permanently cursed with old man smell? But I can sleep somewhere else if we need to split things up."

"Why don't Ford and I take my old room and the twins just take the attic again?"

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other and both made identical awkward grimaces.

"Aaactually, Grunkle Stan, Dipper and I don't share rooms anymore."

"Yeah, we, um. I mean. We're older now so we like having our own space, y'know?"

Mabel held up her hand and spoke behind it as if she was sharing as secret, "Yeah, Dipper doesn't like people sleeping in the same room anymore because he makes weird noises when he has dreams about girls."

Dipper's cheeks flushed at her oversharing.

"Mabel!" he practically shrieked, his voice cracking. "Maybe I need my own room because it's gross to walk into a room and catch you practicing making out with boys on pillows!"

"Guh, as if it's not gross to accidentally stumble on those catalogs with the ladies wearing bathing suits that you keep in your stuff!"

"If you stayed out of my stuff you wouldn't see my stuff! At least I keep _my_ stuff hidden, instead of your - your girl products you leave around! You just leave them out! Like, where anyone can see! Just...on tables! And things! Who does that?"

"Those are perfectly natural girl products that I use for perfectly natural things because I am now a grown up lady who is in the throes of beautiful womanhood -"

"They are _so_ gross-"

"- and it's not like I leave the used ones around -"

"Oh, don't even joke about that, ew ew ew ew -"

"You are so immature! The wrappers aren't even gross, they have hearts and rainbows on them! Why is it that boys can't even be in the same room as the natural things that ladies use when they are now grown up, mature women -"

"Okay, okay!" said Grunkle Stan, interrupting the fight and grimacing. "Sheesh! We, uh, get it. You're older now and you're both walking bags of hormones, and that can be awkward when it comes to sharing a room. Just like chapter twelve of that book on puberty I showed you, huh?" Grunkle Stan nudged Dipper and laughed, "Ha ha!"

"Wait, what?" said Dipper because he hadn't been in his own body for 'Why Am I Sweaty?'

Mabel, on the other hand, visibly shuddered.

"Chapter twelve," she said to herself. "Why can't I forget chapter twelve? _Why?_ "

"That's a normal thing, especially since you're not both girls or both boys," continued Stan. "So why don't we just work out a way you can both sleep in your own rooms like back home, huh?"

"Okay."

"Attic!" yelled Mabel. "Dibs on the attic!"

"Why do you get the attic -?"

Stan held up a hand to stop them again.

"How about Soos stays in the room he's in now, Dipper sleeps in my old room, Mabel gets the attic - so she can have her slumber parties with her friends up there without waking up the rest of the house up with chronic giggling - and Ford and I bunk together down on the cots in the basement? We're used to bunking in close quarters."

"I guess that works," said Dipper, still blushing furiously.

"Attic! The attic is mine!" Mabel crowed victoriously.

"There we go. That works for everyone."

With that, Mabel grabbed her luggage and started to lug it upstairs. "I'm going to use your old bed to build a barricade near the door so we can use the attic as a fortress against zombies and monsters!"

Dipper's heart felt a strange little pang at that.

"I guess that makes sense," he muttered, grabbing his own luggage and hauling it to Stan's old room.

It definitely reeked of old man smell still. It wasn't as bad as it'd once been but was still there. It was strange to see it so empty. When Grunkle Stan had lived there, it'd been filled with junk and the detritus of decades of living. Now that he'd moved out and thrown away most of his stuff and kept the rest in storage or on his and Ford's boat, the room was bare. The weird smell was the only sign someone had lived there at all.

Dipper closed the door after he dragged his luggage in and started to take out the few knick-knacks and books he'd brought, setting the room up to his liking.

He didn't like how it still looked empty after. Back home, he'd helped offset the emptiness of having his own room by filling it with all kinds of things. He had a bulletin board just like he'd had in Gravity Falls where he clipped out articles about strange phenomenon and he'd taken to making charcoal drawings of weird plants and things he saw while stomping around the woods. Dracena Quarry Park was woodsy enough that he could almost pretend to be in Gravity Falls. There were star charts on his walls, too, and he'd hung models of the planets from his ceiling.

But here there was just a big room. One big enough for two people. And it reminded him again of a lifetime of sharing rooms like this with Mabel.

"Growing up is so weird," he sighed to himself.

He hated sharing a room with Mabel now because of the things they'd just bickered about and yet he still missed it. Why did he feel so many things that didn't make sense? He wondered if she ever missed it, too. He especially wondered if she'd miss having the attic without him there.

"Probably not," he said to himself, as he alphabetized his books. "She's probably just glad she has more room for her stupid magazine collages and boy band posters."

* * *

Up in the attic, Mabel shoved over Dipper's bed with a thump and shoved it over near the door. It made for a perfect barricade for them to potentially hide behind if there were zombies again.

That was one good reason Dipper wasn't sharing a room, right? So she could use his bed that way? That meant if there was ever trouble again, they could all run up to the attic and get out on the roof like they'd done before.

The only thing she didn't like was the fact it meant that all that was over on the other side of the room was a big ol' empty spot. But that could be fixed. She shoved her bed closer to the center of the room and started to stick a bunch of her posters and collages on the wall.

That helped. A little.

She shoved her luggage in the spot where his bed had been. That helped a little more.

But it was still hard to ignore the strange feeling that something was missing. That didn't make any sense, did it? She and Dipper drove each other nuts now when they had to share the same space. It was better that they didn't, because when they didn't, they got along fine.

Well, if by "fine," you meant "okay" because things had started to get weird. Dipper was so quiet sometimes and he'd stopped trying to wrangle her into adventures. He spent a lot of time running around Dracena park alone, drawing those weird charcoal drawings of funguses and stuff. They didn't do as many fun things together anymore. And she knew he had nightmares a lot, because sometimes he yelled when he woke up from them and she could hear it from her room.

She had them, too, but as time had past and they'd gotten farther and farther from the events of last summer, hers had almost stopped. She only had them now and again - usually dreams about the dolls and stuffed animals in her room morphing and changing into something horrible, like the things that had chased them when they'd tried to escape her dream bubble during the apocalypse.

Or she had a horrible dream of a black and white world with a giant triangle with an eye - more a flat-yet-living image, rather than Bill himself - chomping its big, horrible teeth in time with the changing symbol in its eye.

 _Shooting star, pine tree, shooting star, pine tree..._

It stopped on a different symbol each time and then its teeth loomed up big and close, about to crunch down.

That was when she always woke up. She'd never been able to decide if the dream was scarier when it ended on the pine tree or when it ended on the shooting star, but she knew it was scariest those rare times it landed on both.

Luckily the dreams were rarer now, but she knew they'd never stopped or slowed with Dipper. He had at least one each week or two. Sometimes she heard her parents talking about it in hushed voices, wondering if it was just a natural thing because he was a naturally anxious person, or if they should say something. They sometimes asked him leading questions to get him to open up about it, but he always acted okay and gave them the answers they wanted to hear so that they didn't pry too deep.

Sometimes she worried about him a little bit, too. She didn't like that the nightmares hadn't lessened for him. And she didn't like how he didn't smile as often. And she knew he didn't have anywhere near as many friends as she did. Sometimes people even said mean things about him in school but she was usually able to threaten them into being nice - either with her fists or with her social clout.

(No one wanted to be on the outs with one of the most popular girls in class, after all.)

But things were fine, right? If there was something wrong between them, if he was unhappy, he'd just say something…

Right?

"After all we've been through, it's not like Dipper would keep any secrets from me," said Mabel, thinking out loud. "Right, Waddles?"

The pig oinked cheerfully and she smiled, slapping a big, ol' "Hi Ho, Bunny" poster in the space that'd once been over the head of his bed.

Things were fine! And this summer was going to be great! They'd get to see all their old friends, and their grunkles, and get to focus on spending a little more time with each other, and he'd start smiling a lot more.

And maybe the world would possibly actually not almost end this time!

* * *

On the other side of town, Shmipper and Smabble settled into their shared room for the night, excited for the new day tomorrow. Just like last summer, they were visiting their beloved Pop Pop and it was the start of a fun and amazing new summer!

And hopefully this time they wouldn't be turned into pieces of a giant throne of nightmares!

"Night, Shmipper!"

"Night, Smabble!"

"Tomorrow's going to be fun!"

"The funnest!"

They both drifted off to a peaceful sleep. It was so peaceful that Shmipper was very confused when he woke up not long after, out in the woods. His clothes were muddy and he vaguely remembered a voice. A haunting and hypnotic kind of voice, the kind that could wheedle you into doing something you didn't want and make you think you wanted it all along.

"How did I get here?" he called out but only the creepy hooting of an owl answered.

"Oh man," he said. He really didn't like the dark and Gravity Falls was...well. It had been really scary last year. But he didn't know where he was and had no idea how to get back.

As he walked through the underbrush, struggling through the shrubs that caught at his pajama pants, he started to feel...something strange. Like something was compelling him to move, calling to him. He was still so sleepy, almost on that edge of being asleep and being awake and from the sleepy side of his brain a voice called out to him.

He almost tripped over the statue.

It was half-buried in the ground and when he saw it, he yelped!

It was the triangle man! The scary triangle man that had brought all the monsters!

For a second, Shmipper froze in place, terrified, looking at the statue's outstretched hand. It didn't move or do anything scary. It was strange how its hand was held out like that. Like it was waiting to be shaken. As scared as he was he felt this strange urge to reach out his hand and shake it.

So he did.

A great wind blew through the clearing, rustling the leaves and making the trees sway and then-

Nothing happened. The statue stayed there still and lifeless.

But Shmipper still felt that little voice in the back of his head, the one he was pretty sure now that he'd dreamt up, the voice that was still tickling the edge of his consciousness. It wanted him to keep moving, to find something. So he kept walking, hoping that maybe the little voice, that strange little tickling urge to move, would help him get home.

As he walked along, shivering in the cool night air, he focused on just putting one foot in front of the other. He kept doing this until the ground suddenly gave out underneath his feet, causing him to roll down a hill. Fortunately, it was all covered in ferns and that helped cushion his fall. When he found himself at the bottom, he saw the wreckage of an old house in the moonlight.

It was very very old and most of the wood had rotted away. It was just a skeleton of a house, really, with no roof. Just some beams standing up and a rotten wooden floor.

He felt compelled to walk into it.

What he saw there was strange. There was a little tree stump that had been dragged into the room and next to it on the ground, where it'd been knocked off, was the bleached remains of some kind of board game. The wooden pieces were scattered and rotting, too.

It looked like a really old fashioned version of the board game "What Could Go Wrong?" like maybe a version of it from decades before. There were chairs around the stump and the remains of the board game, twisted and rusting, and also some rusty cans of a soda Shmipper had never seen before, with an old timey kind of label. There was a broken, old-fashioned looking radio, too.

It was strange. Like people had been in the old house playing an old game and had suddenly disappeared.

That was when he noticed the strangest thing of all, a little golden amulet on a gold chain, on one of the chairs. It had a shining crimson crystal in the center.

Shmipper picked it up and saw that there were carvings on the back of it. Words etched in.

 _ **Endless toil was my curse,  
**_ _ **and the idle are to blame.  
**_ _ **Now this curse is yours to bear,  
**_ _ **all those who waste their time with games!**_

"Weird."

But cool. It was a cool, weird, old-timey necklace. Like something out of a mystery. Shmipper decided to keep it. To take it with him.

And the funny thing was when he did, he felt the little voice in the back of his head go away. He felt like maybe he could go home now.

So he left the strange wreckage of the house and its strange broken, faded, half-rotten game and started to walk again. When he got back up the hill, he realized he could see through some of the trees and see part of town. That helped him realize where he was and he walked until he was finally out of the woods. After walking down a few streets, he found his Pop pop's house again and snuck in through the back door. It was unlocked - possible left that way by himself?

What a strange night. He realized he must've been sleepwalking! He even still felt half-asleep now!

He went into his room and got some spare pajamas, then went and changed in the bathroom and washed himself off a little bit in the sink and in the tub. His feet had dragged mud into the house, but he knew if he explained the sleepwalking that his Pop pop wouldn't be mad. He'd probably just be glad that he hadn't gotten hurt!

Then he went into the room he shared with his sister Smabble and put the cool amulet on the bookcase. He couldn't wait to show her in the morning and tell her about his weird sleepwalking adventure!

As he settled in to sleep, he didn't notice the crimson gem glowing or the red electricity that arced down the bookcase, crackling around one of the boxes there. It was the box of a game:

 **Battle & Chutes & Ladder & Ships.**

The box started to glow, and as he drifted off to sleep again, in his dreams, Shmipper heard the same voice that'd told him to wander into the woods.

It was laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing...


End file.
